The invention relates to a device for the testing of contact-action (rubbing) between rotating and stationary structural elements of flow-related engines especially gas turbine power plants.
With flow-related engines, for example, gas turbine power plants, problems arise regarding the selection of suitable materials for sealing elements which cooperate with each other during operation, for example, between the compressor or turbine rotor and the compressor or turbine stator, respectively.
Additionally, it is often customary for modern gas turbine power plants to provide so-called "inner-ringless" guide grids, for example, for the compressor stator with respect to "cover-bandless" rotating blades for compressors or turbine rotors.
In order to obtain a smallest possible leakage gap, it is hereby provided, to let the blade tips, in a first starting phase of the driving mechanism, brush along the run-in overlay arranged at the blade ends so that they can wear themselves in.
Furthermore, with gas turbine power plants it also must be considered that, especially in the turbine-side area, thermally caused eccentricities occuring between the rotor and stator will lead to undesirable contact-action (rubbing) for example, between the turbine rotating blade tips and the sealing surfaces at the turbine stator facing them which include a blade cover band which is constructed as a labyrinth seal.
In this and similar cases, it is important to create a material-pairing between the rotating and stationary structural elements which completely satisfy the operational requirements such as temperature loadability, deformability, and stressing and expansion behavior as well as, among other things, the adhesive ability, for example, at the sealing support or the housing.
Thus, in order to insure safe operation of a flow-related engine, especially a gas turbine power plant, it is particularly important to have the required information with respect to the above-noted properties to enable the proper selection of suitable materials within the framework of the above-noted problem at the time of designing or even during preliminary designing of such engines. To enable the proper selection, naturally requires the testing of materials or material compositions which have not previously been used in practice as well as previously utilized materials which will be utilized in a different manner within the framework of a re-design.
Therefore, the present invention has for an object, the creation of a device which is suitable for evaluating the optimal material combinations and particularly with regard to contact-action (rubbing) conditions which would occur in practice with flow-related engines such as gas turbine power plants.
To achieve this object, the testing of the rubbing effects is accomplished through measuring the relationship between rotating and stationary structural elements and/or material specimens thereof by a motor-driven body of rotation, for example, according to a preferred embodiment, a disk as well as a mounting arrangement adjustable in an axial and radial direction in relation to the disk and to which structural elements or material specimens may be mounted.
These and further objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more obvious from the following description when taken in connection with the accompanying drawings which show for purposes of illustration only, a single embodiment in accordance with the present invention.